How to Get New Clients at Networking Events and Meetings

Local network meetings are a PROVEN successful way to get new clients and they give you a great opportunity to present yourself as an authority and expert in Local Marketing.

The trick is to strategically attend these local network meeting events and offer value to other business owner by offering presentations on how they can succeed online by utilizing what’s working in the market place. Be careful to make sure your giving great content and education and not trying to obviously sell because a lot of these places frown upon this. The thing is you don’t need to because the education will sell them on YOU!

There are probably many local business events in your area so take a look at the possibilities and put yourself out there..

Chamber of Commerce – Every community has a local chamber of commerce. The fee for joining can be in the hundreds of dollars but often times you can join with a monthly fee. Even if it’s not advertised ask. If you can get involved in events using your skills to help, people will start recommending you.

Your Strategy: Align yourself with the smallest businesses and if they have a sub group, those who work from home. If they don’t have a work from home or floating office contingent, create one. You’ll become invaluable to the organization.

Women in Business Meetings — Check to see if your community has meetings just for women, or if you’re not a woman, find out if they need people to present at meetings. Many local women’s business meetings like to have an expert speak on various topics and you don’t have to be a female.

Your Strategy: Help others learn how to work from home on the Internet while also filling your client list with those who don’t want to do everything themselves. You might be surprised to learn that even when you tell people how to do everything from A to Z, they don’t really want to do all that work. That’s where you come in.

BNI International Meetings — Business networking groups like this are excellent ways to find clients to work with. The way these groups work is that only one business or person from each profession can join each group. The members agree to recommend each other. It can be pricy to get in and you have to be comfortable giving a presentation to the others before they accept you. It can be very lucrative.

Your Strategy: Showcase your business in the best light during presentations, and become a resource to this group of networkers. Recommend them to others in the rest of your local networks and they will return the favor. The great thing about BNI is that within a group, you’re the only one of your kind in it, so you can offer a lot.

“A strategy that works extremely well for me is offering free training webinars for members and the way I get people to register is by using a QR code on a business card that links to the Webinar registration. Of course you must not be selling but offering genuine great content.”

Start Your Own Meetings — Using a social program like http://www.meetup.com to plan and organize local business meetings. You can start it with your own presentation. You’ll need to find a space. A good idea for locating space is asking for free space from an hourly office rental firm. They might light the idea of getting some free advertisement for your weekly meetings being hosted with them.

Your Strategy: Become an expert in your field on a local basis. Get known as the go-to person regarding your niche. By having your own meet ups and conducting your own presentation those who attend will automatically see you as an expert and come to you if they need extra help. If you can align with an office rental agency you’ll be golden.

When you attend any local events go prepared to promote your business. Bring business cards that list your website or perhaps a QR code on them that will take them to a form to get on your email list. Get their cards too and contact them. Invite them to coffee. Give them advice if they ask for it and really connect with these local people and you’ll be surprised to find that you can find plenty of local clients to fill any open billable hours you have.

Andy’s Tip! One of the most powerful things you can do for these events is get a book published. It’s not hard and very inexpensive these days and I can tell you from much experience that when you offer a business owner your book instead of a business card, they will instantly regard you as THE expert and Authority!